Broken Heart

Nothing is worse that hearing your baby cry. It's like being stabbed in the heart. There are definitely varying degrees of how much it hurts depending on the situation, but every cry causes a mother to ache. (and some daddies too...Chris included) We've come to a crossroads with Addison's sleep habits. It's coming down to either me being an exhausted mom, with three hours of sleep each night, or us making a change with how we put Addison to sleep. We've decided a change has to be made. I can't go on any longer with our current situation, especially doing the nights alone for four nights a week. I've been reading up a storm on different sleep solutions, paying closer attention to those solutions that include phrases like "no-tears" or "no-cry." We've attempted the no-cry sleep solution method where you put the baby down drowsy, and if she cries, you immediately pick her up, get her drowsy again, and repeat. This is just the first phase, and we've never made it past Phase I. Addison will cry every time, never fail. We can set her down and pick her up 20 times, and she'll never put herself to sleep. We've tried just hovering over her crib, shushing her and rubbing her tummy and legs, however this causes her to get even more frantic, escalating her crying even more. So I've decided that it's time to try a little bit of "controlled crying" with lots of check ins and soothing, and not going past a certain agreed upon time limit. I don't know how to get around the crying thing. Currently, the only way Addison knows how to fall asleep is with our help, ie: bouncing, rocking or nursing. I just can't seem to allow myself to let her completely "cry it out" as in the Ferber method. I know Addison needs to learn how to fall back asleep on her own when she wakes up, but isn't there a way to help her that doesn't involve letting her scream bloody murder? I know I'm not the only one out there who feels this way. My parent-baby group is filled with moms who feel similarly, however sleep hasn't been our topic of discussion lately and I'm wondering if anyone has a baby who isn't sleeping and what they're doing about it? I know we have a lot of co-sleepers in our group, (us included) but is anyone getting any sleep?
Before we had Addison, I remember hearing about friends with babies who didn't sleep and parents who refused to let them cry, and I would think to myself "What harm is there in letting them just cry themselves to sleep?" Now that we're living it...I understand. I've also come to the realization that no matter what ideas you have about how you're going to raise your child, and how you're going to deal with certain situations in the future, you can't decide until you are dealing with it IN THE MOMENT. All of my pie-in-the-sky ideas are out the window. Addison is our precious, angel from above, and that alone guides us to make decisions based on who SHE is and what SHE needs, and not because a book says so, or other well-meaning people say it worked for them.
As I'm typing this, Addison is crying, and my heart is breaking.